in search of a passage he had noticed and lost. He presently found it
again, and turned laughing towards Meadows, who was trifling with a
French novel.

"Do you remember this passage in _Culture and Anarchy_--'I often,
therefore, when I want to distinguish clearly the aristocratic class
from the Philistines proper, or middle class, name the former, in my own
mind, _the Barbarians_. And when I go through the country, and see this
or that beautiful and imposing seat of theirs crowning the landscape,
"There," I say to myself, "is a great fortified post of the
Barbarians!"'"

The youth pointed smiling to the fine Scotch house seen sideways on the
other side of the lawn. Its turreted and battlemented front rose high
above the low and spreading buildings which made the bulk of the house,
so that it was a feudal castle--by no means, however, so old as it
looked--on a front view, and a large and roomy villa from the rear.
Meadows, looking at it, appreciated the fitness of the quotation, and
laughed in response.

"Ungrateful wretch," he said--"after that dinner last night!"

"All the same, Matthew Arnold had that dinner in mind--_chef_ and all!
Listen! 'The graver self of the Barbarian likes honours and
consideration; his more relaxed self, field-sports and pleasures.'
Isn't it exact? Grouse-driving in the morning--bridge, politics,
Cabinet-making, and the best of food in the evening. And I should put
our hostess very high--wouldn't you?--among the chatelaines of the
'great fortified posts'?"